


As Fast As You Can

by aedonprose



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/F, Humanstuck, Mafia AU, Vriska is in hiding in this pretty village and hates it passionately 'til she meets Kanaya., beautiful quiet english village au is probably more accurate, but like, except not really at all, i should've said that at the start oops, longfic-level fluff, shameless fluff, sorry - Freeform, st mary mead-stuck? no but oooh i should actually do a mary mead stuck
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-17
Updated: 2015-02-05
Packaged: 2018-02-25 18:09:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2631287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aedonprose/pseuds/aedonprose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>[ABANDONED LMAOOOO]</p><p><em>Run, run, run,</em><br/><em>as fast as you can:</em><br/><em>you can't catch me!</em><br/>cried the gingerbread man. </p><p>The first thing you decide when you arrive is that you hate Upper Dolorose. You <em>hate</em> it.  You'd even say you haaaaaaaate it! And if you had the choice to be anywhere else, you would be. But...</p><p>Well, your life fell down around your ears recently. And you've run as far and as fast as you can: you're safe, now, on the other side of the world. </p><p>But <em>jesus</em>, you're bored. </p><p>--</p><p>this fic involves Vriska being ex-mafia and Kanaya being (ex-)aristocracy. And lesbians. </p><p>The idea of this fic (and therefore the rough [VERY ROUGH] plot) was stolen from fanficcy-prompts.tumblr.com: "AU where person A is in the witness protection program because of like a mafia or something and meets person B who falls in love with them and then person A tells person B who they really are.” That doesn't tell you a lot about where this fic's going, though.</p><p>ARE YOU PUMPED? I'M PUMPED! HERE GOES!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. In Which The Author Decides Chronological Order Is Too Much Trouble And Proceeds To Begin A Longfic With Love Interest Instead Of Logic

‘Hello?’

Kanaya’s shorter than you are, you notice with an odd amount of relief: she’s medium-sized and compact, compared to your long and lanky self. She’s wearing a red dress, one that looks almost like a Japanese silk: and it’s all sharp angles and graceful lines. Like an origami… crane, or a swan, or a moth. Standing on her doorstep, you feel awkward, for the first time since you arrived in Upper Dolorose, about your tight jeans, midriff top and faded denim sleeveless jacket. Her hair’s cut stylishly short, and it’s almost exactly the brown yours used to be before you got it bleached and double-dyed.

(She wears short-shorts, you wear T-shirts, if you feel like your inner monologue’s aping a Taylor Swift song it’s probably time to stop thinking.)

-

_‘Vriska Serket,’ says Pyrope briskly. ‘Ever been to Alternia, Miss Gant?’_

_You shake your head, tired and angry and lost. ‘What the fuck does Alternia have to do with anything, Pyrope –‘_

_‘Serket. Your new name. It’s a very common Alternian last name, actually, and given your mother was apparently from thereabouts it made sense.’_

_Your brain’s turning off as she speaks. ‘I was never interested in geography,’ you inform her. You slide down in your seat. You look out the window._

_‘Pay attention, Miss Serket. You’re supposed to know this story. We’ve arranged for you to be sent to a small village, near the north of England. An associate of ours lives there, and you’ll be staying there to begin with, as a distant cousin of his. Of course, you’re welcome to leave as well, although I wouldn’t recommend it. You’ve nowhere to go – literally, nowhere.’_

_You exhale and rub one eye with the back of your hand. ‘Goody,’ you say in a sigh. ‘Just fucking great.’_

-

‘Uh.’ you say, thrusting the package you were carrying at her, ‘Eridan sent me. From the store - to give you this package thing. You’re fu - you’re welcome.’

‘I like your shirt,’ she observes. Her accent is as careful and posh and stereotypically British as you were expecting, but the compliment isn’t. ‘It complements your hair nicely.’ Your hand goes to your hair automatically – ‘Thanks?’ you say.

‘You must be Vriska,’ she says, smiling at you. ‘It’s nice to meet you. You’re John’s cousin, aren’t you? Staying at Prospit?’

Why’s she so cheerful? ‘Yeah,’ you say suspiciously. ‘You must be Kanaya. You listened to my boss bitch about how much funnier and sexier than him I am for an hour straight, and you’re still able to use your ears? Or, like, your brain?’ (You know it was an hour. You counted, staring at the clock on the wall for the middle bit of your shift while he w-whined next to you.)

‘He may have mentioned you in passing,’ she says. She’s totally trying not to laugh. ‘I got the impression the two of you ought to work on your people skills. With respect to each other, especially.’

‘You don’t need to meddle, lady,’ you say, holding up both hands. ‘I am perfectly able to handle one hipster asshole with stupid ears and a stupider accent, and I have zero desire for him to like me. I just want him to pay me money, okay?’

Definitely. She’s definitely and obviously trying not to laugh.

-

_‘You’ll be leaving the day after tomorrow. There’ll be a car to take you to Upper Dolorose and hand you over to John. Is there anything else we need to do before you leave?’_

_‘Am I still in trouble for shit?’ you demand._

_‘No,’ says Pyrope, winking, ‘unless we catch you doing something else illegal.’_

-

‘So, Vriska, what do you think of Upper Dolorose?’

‘Well, it’s lame and boring and there’s no MacDonald’s. It’s not as cool as New York,’ you say dismissively.

She actually looks disappointed. ‘Kanaya, literally nowhere is as cool as New York. Stop looking offended, fussy. It’s not a slight on your perfect lil’ village – well, not yours specifically, anyway.’

She blinks. ‘I… I think there may have been a compliment in there somewhere, but I’d hate to jump to conclusions…’

-

_‘Can I go back? Just, like, quickly, I’m not fucking stupid. I don’t want Megido to kill me –’ you stop and swallow and blink a bit._

_‘Why?’_

_You refuse to say you want to see Meenah again, or you want to say sorry. ‘My shit’s all there,’ you say instead. ‘I’ll need, like, clothes and stuff, right? Unless you legal team wanna buy me all new shit for England.’_

_Pyrope looks at you, long and hard, and nods slowly. ‘All right. We’re waiting for Peixes to leave first, though.’ she adds. ‘Not negotiable.’_

-

‘So what’s in the box that’s so exciting you couldn’t come down and get this shit from the shop yourself?’ you ask. You’re betting on sweaters, or kitchen supplies, or something that really shouldn’t be all that exciting.

‘Uh,’ she says, going a little pink. ‘Clothes?’

‘Reeeeeeeeally?’ You can’t resist teasing her: the expression on her face is so delightfully guilty. ‘What kind of clothes, exactly?’

‘They consist mainly of sexy lingerie,’ she says, straight-faced. ‘There are also several collars and leashes – which, I should clarify, were my sister’s order, not mine.’

She’s being sarcastic. You think.

-

_‘Vriska,’ says Pyrope as you go to leave, and you turn. You can’t muster the energy to be mad at her, anymore. ‘That’s not my name, you know,’ you snap half-heartedly._

_‘It is, now, and the sooner you get used to it, the better –’ her face is unusually soft, and she gives you a quirky, melancholy half-smile, just a flash of teeth -‘but for what it’s worth, I’m sorry about your sister.’_

-

Upper Dolorose sucks shit. You miss New York. You miss having people to talk to who didn’t think crocheting was fun and baking was an acceptable way to spend a Saturday night.You hate Prospit. You hate the manor, and your new shitty job and your new shittier boss.

But Kanaya…

Well. You’ll concede she’s okay.

-

_You don’t want to leave, you think, staring at the airport. Everything you wanted from your apartment, everything left of your life, is in the bag slung over your shoulder and the case sitting behind you. Everything you are, packed up and rolled away and made meaningless._

_Your life is not in these objects, you think. It’s not like fabric and metal have the ability to contain everything that you are, it’s not like the inanimate clothes and phone and rings and skates are you, are your whole self…_

_They just happen to be all that you have left._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey  
> welcome  
> thanks for struggling through the painfully confusing chapter.
> 
> things that need explaining which i probably should've put in the tags:  
> In this AU, Alternia's a country on Earth. It's in Northern Europe, I think - it moves around, depending on the fic, though. I just like this AU as a way of inserting parts of troll culture into humanstuck AU's without destroying the integrity of the setting.  
> "Vriska"'s old name is Marquise Gant. Marquise because, duh. Gant is a shortened version of Gamblignant. It sounded better than Mindfang, okay?
> 
> Also, I give fair warning now that I'm a very slow writer. I'm starting with two chapters up, and hopefully Chapter 2 explains some of the things that are confusing about Chapter 1, gives some exposition, etc. etc. But from now on it's going to be snail's pace. 
> 
> (oh and my tumblr is aedonrose.tumblr.com for questions or comments or feedback or whatever the heck else.)


	2. in which vriska arrives at a town that really doesn't seem all that bad, jeez, serket, haha!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Set just before Chapter 1. This one's second in the story, because... okay, there's no good reason. Really, I just wanted to begin the story with Kanaya as she's, like, the second main character. Second character? Whatever. Welcome, officially, to Upper Dolorose. You'll see your accommodation on the left, your dull-as-fuck job on your left, your obviously dotted references to the girl you'll fall in love with straight ahead. An Egbert will greet you on your way in.

You can feel your own visibility here, in a way you never could in New York.

Everything about you - the blue and black streaks in your pale hair, the four-more-than-socially-acceptable-number of extra piercings in your ears and your lip and your stomach, the clothes just a little bit edgier and tighter and cooler than everyone around you, the dark lipstick and darker eyeliner, the Scorpio tattoo that peeps out over your shoulderblade – well, you could keep going. There’s a loooooooong list. Everything about you, every trait that ensured you fitted in back there, with your crowd, makes you stick out here. When you’re in Upper Dolorose you have this buzzing sense of being _noticed_ , this sense that you broke at least eight of the town’s unspoken rules by being just who you are. You’ve never had this sense before - and you kind of fucking hate it.

‘You’re Vriska… Serkait?’ says the guy at the door, crinkling his nose. He’s so _British._ Everything’s so British. Here you feel loud and clunky and violently American, and in a funny way you’re almost mad at that. You should be laughing at him, calling him a dork for his glasses and his nerdy shirt and his cargo shorts, but instead he fits with the country town and you’re the one that needs to explain yourself. Orrrrrrrr… you could just intimidate every provincial, nobility-based, snobby, time-displaced _peasant_ around you, which honestly sounds like more fun.

‘You said it wrong, loser,’ you grin wide at him, show off all your teeth. ‘It’s _Seeer_ ket. And – yeah, I am.’

It sounds funny on your tongue. Technically, you’re Alternian, but it’s not like you’ve ever been there. Vriska Serket, as a name, felt wrong when Pyrope suggested it, wrong on your passport at the airport  - you feel like somebody’s going to catch you out, somebody’s going to yell ‘Liar!’ when you claim it as your own because it _isn’t your name_. You don’t know whose it was before the WPP gave it to you and you’re not interested: you want to say ‘I’m Marqui, idiot,’ and you don’t want to be here, pretending to be the distant cousin of some British nerd you don’t give a shit about, to hide from a bastard you thought you were already shot of. You want to be home and you want Meenah and you want _Aranea_ and –

‘Well, welcome to our humble abode, cousin!’ he says, laughing a little after he does like he just made some incredible joke. ‘Come in, jeez, we can’t have you just standing on the doorstep all day. Kanaya’ll get mad at us messing up the village, Kanaya, she lives in the manor, she likes things to look nice. Not that you wouldn’t make a great doorstep ornament, and all, but, uh… you might get shot with a sniper rifle or something and then I would get in trouble, haha!’

You roll your eyes and walk in, past him. If he were someone you cared about, you would have loftily told him there were probably eighteen snipers on you right now, because you happen to be Such a Big Deal, why does he think you moved all the way to the middle of Upper Buttfuck Nowhere if not for super major league protection? Honestly, though, you can’t muster the energy for more than an eyeroll, and so you enter Prospit Lodging House much more quietly and ceremoniously than Marquise Gant would have liked.

Your first impression is of… yellow. The walls are painted this ancient buttery cream gold colour, and it looks like they haven’t been repainted in a while. There’s a door that leads to the kitchen, and another one that leads to the tiniest, narrowest, steepest set of stairs you’ve ever seen. You guess there are bedrooms and stuff up there? And there are two windows, pouring early morning light over the ancient, sagging couch and a messy rack of bags and coats and scarves (wool, seriously, why?). You can see a garden out one window, messy and green and covered in weeds, overflowing its boundaries at every corner.

It looks…

‘Old,’ you say, turning up your nose, determined to be irritated at _something_. ‘Man, when’s the last time you painted in here? There are cracks in all the walls. And yellow is a dumb color for walls, anyway. They should be blue or something. And this house looks tiny, how many people do I have to share with?’

‘Oh! Right!’ says John, who’s been standing there opening and closing his mouth looking vaguely uncomfortable as you insult the building he’s offered to you. (Aren’t British people supposed to be politer? You read somewhere that they are…. Whoops.)

‘Yeah, you should meet everybody who’s here, Vriska, you are going to have to share a kitchen and laundry and stuff with them after all!’ He takes a deep breath and hollers, ‘YOU GUYS! COME MEET VRISKA!’ (He doesn’t notice your infinitesimal moment of blankness before you recognise, _Vriska_ , that’s your name now.)

‘JUST A SECOND!’ you hear three voices yell, almost in chorus, from the window to the garden and from the door leading to the kitchen.

The stairs start thundering as a tall, cheerful-looking (Maori?) guy clatters down them, green shirt flapping and big hiking boots making the stairs work like a percussion set. He grins at you and holds out the hand not holding a rucksack (but here it’s a backpack? What a stupid fucking word). ‘Nice to meet you, Miss Vriska,’ he says. ‘I’m Jake, Jake English, and - well,’ you stare at his hand until he withdraws it awkwardly. ‘Anyway, I was about to go for a walk, so I’ll see you at dinner, I suppose!’ He smiles at John, bobs his head to you, and clatters past you out the door with the same level of noise he’s displayed since he appears.

‘Vriska who?’ says yet another smiley dark-haired face below a giant floppy straw hat with a lime-coloured ribbon, popping up from the window on the other side. This girl’s skin is darker, which you’d guess is about half due to race and about half due to tan, and her hair is long and black and curly and tangly and  _everywhere._ She pushes it out of her face with a grubby hand, pushes a pair of circular wire glasses up her nose and grins at you as you say ‘Serket’ grudgingly. ‘It’s nice to meet you, Vriska Serket!’ she says happily. ‘I’m Jade. I’ll be in in a second, John, I’ve just gotta water the flowers out the back, the ones for Lady Maryam -’ and you tune out the rest, hitching your bag awkwardly over your shoulder as you walk toward the stairs (you’re aware of exactly how you walk: you’re lanky and graceful and sexy and you kind-of enjoy the fact that you know John’s watching you go). What does it say that you’re more interested in whatever boring-ass yellow room they’ve got for you than the people you’re going to have to live with?

‘Are you always this rude, Vriska?’ says John, and you whip around to beat him into the ground. He doesn’t seem angry, though, or offended. _He’s teasing you_ , you realise, and you roll your eyes and say. ‘Yep, pretty much. None of you seem worth my time anyway - what the fuck is _that_?’ Your sentence breaks off and you sniff the air again: you only caught a whiff of it, but whatever it is it smells amazing. Dropping your bag where it is, you walk back down the stairs and nearly crash into - ‘Jesus, do you all live in the walls?’ you say. ‘How many more people does this house fit? Do you also have the fucking Queen of England hiding in the broom closet?’

‘Well, that’s rude,’ says the small, dark-haired person you’ve collided with, but she says it mildly and you get the sense she means it in the same sense that John did. ‘Sorry for bumping into you… Vriska? Is that right? I’m Jane. I believe I’m the last housemate you’ve to meet today, thank goodness. Would you like to sit and have a biscuit with us? They’re the manor house’s recipe, Kanaya’s cook swears by these...’

You’re about to accept, but that means spending time with these people you’ve already decided you hate. They are so simple and their lives are so small and you have the petty feeling that they have no idea how to _really_ live, how to really feel. You feel like storming out of here and walking back to NY straight away: fuck them, their British accents, their hiking and gardening and baking, and the god-awful-boring days you can see stretching out ahead of you.

You imitate Jane’s accent and her light tone. ‘No, I would not like a fucking _cookie_ with you,’ you say, emphasising the last word in your own voice, about an octave lower. ‘I’m bored, already, and I flew like eighteen hours to be here the day you expected me. You’re welcome for that, by the way, it was no trouble to help you out, yada-yada all that shit. So… yeah. Later, losers.’

‘Um.’ says John, in the silence after your mini-speech, following you up the stairs and into a teeny sunlit hallway with bedroom doors everywhere, names in teeny silver brackets. (Jade’s has a hand-scrawled KEEP OUT sign blu-tacked to the door, and you poke it off the wall as you pass. What does she do in there that’s so special?) ‘So… so, right! That’s everyone, I mean we have people through occasionally, especially in the summer, but, yep, that’s the crew! I hope you like it here, Vriska – oh, this is your room, up here –‘

‘What’d you bring my bag up, for, John?’ you say, grinning at him. ‘It can’t be annoying and get in everyone’s way if it’s not on the stairs, now can it?’

He chuckles (wow, you’ve never heard anyone actually do that before. Who _chuckles_  outside of the kind of bad, overdramatic erotica you and Meenah used to make fun of?) and chucks it gently inside the door at the very end of the narrow hallway. ‘After you, my lady,’ he says, and bows. ‘Welcome to…the Pirate’s Nest!’

It’s not nearly as dramatic as he expects it to be: but there’s a nice window, through which you can see Jade’s butt in the garden (charming, you’re sure), and the rest of the village, as well as the fancy manor house. Oh, and a fuckton of trees. The room’s teeny and quaint and old-fashioned, with a white-painted wire bed and a quilt, a tiny dresser, and wallpaper with a tiny stylised sun motif on it. ‘More yellow,’ you remark to the walls (you totally predicted it), although really it’s closer to orange. You throw yourself on the bed (the springs make alarmed noises and you make a note _not_  to be gentle with them) and say, staring at the ceiling, ‘Tell me you have wifi here.’

Your name is (not) Vriska Serket, and today is the beginning of the end of your life.

-

‘This is dumb,’ you say, poking an ancient grandfather clock suspiciously. ‘Do people seriously come in here and buy this shit?’

‘Ha, yes, Vriska, they do,’ John says from his position of state behind the till. ‘Upper Dolorose is famous for its antique shops, the Maryams are super proud of them. And ours is simply the best there is!’

You’re beginning to suspect that it is literally impossible to irritate John. In the past twenty minutes while you waited for him to go on break so he could take you to your own job, you’ve tried on all the antique necklaces, juggled with cushions, nearly dropped a silver salver (they genuinely have one of those, apparently) and all he’s done is laugh and tell you ‘be careful, Vriska, jeez!’ You don’t know what you have to do to make it clear you dislike him, God.

‘Okay, done!’ he says cheerfully. ‘Let’s go introduce you to Eridan!’

Which, as it turns out, is a _terrible_ idea.

-

‘- an’ she’s _horrible_ , Kan, she came up an’ just _looked_  me up an’ dowwn an’ she twweaked my scarf an’ insulted my shoes. An’ she shelvves everythin’ wwrong an’ refuses to do it properly, she stacks things in piles of eight instead a ten because “that’s howw they do it in Neww York, Eeeeeeeearidan!” I swwear, Kan, I’m going to fuckin’ kill her - wwell, no, I can’t fire her, she’s John’s cousin - and, she’s scary. And… kind a attractivve. Plus, she’s doin’ the work, technically...’

His Serket-brand American accent’s passable, you think. You’re not that whiny, though, and there’s no way you stretch out your vowels as long as he’s emphasising. But then, you think, smirking, it’s shocking he can talk at all with a Yorkshire accent as thick as his stupid wool scarf, or the rings on his fingers, or the stripes on his trousers or the purple dye in his hair… combined.

‘You do realise, _Earidan_ ,’ you call, ‘that I can hear you? That ‘back room’ of yours is barely distant from your tiny-ass fridge. Man, New York was so much cooler! _And_  we actually stocked soy milk!’

(Actually, you think the store’s cute, in a quaint way, and you’ve never bothered with soy milk in your life. That was Aranea’s deal. But fuck you if you don’t wanna irritate this asshole Eridan as much as humanly possible.)

Eridan goes red. Then purple. You guess it’s the nickname: maybe it’s a little mean, but your new boss has been blessed with an unfortunate pair of low-set, larger-than-life ears, and his god-awful hipster swept-up hair really just helps make them even more noticeable. Seriously. They could practically be fins on the sides of his face.

‘Shut the fuck up, Serket, for the love a Christ, I’m on the phone,’ he hisses. You roll your eyes and go back to stocking the teeny fridge with ice-cream and yoghurt (and you don’t care what the fuck a single person says, you will never. EVER. pronounce yoghurt with a short o).

‘Tell Kan I said hi,’ you jeer at the end of your shift, after four hours of boxing mundane and pointless mail, arranging flowers, and accidentally-on-purpose-knocking-over, you mean, uh, _stacking_  food cartons. You’re almost sorry to be leaving Eridan - he’s fun to tease, and he gives as good as he gets (although you always win. You are just too good at sparring: you are simply the best there is - plus you have his w-weird and w-wav-vy accent to fall back on whenever you need a comeback).

‘Wwait, Vvris!’ he says (that’s you, you’re Vriska, right, you think momentarily - how long til you’re used to being called by that stupid name? how long til you don’t turn around when somebody says Marqui anymore?), and you turn, one eyebrow raised. ‘Could you have mangled that sentence any more, W-wonderboy?’ you ask, waiting for the customary purple face you’ve come to expect when you tease Eridan. He doesn’t bother with a retort this time, though, just shoves a package at you and orders you imperiously (stutteringly) to deliver it to the manor on your way home.

‘ _What_?’ you say angrily. ‘That’s nowhere near my way home, asshole, I’m at Prospit and you know that. Remember how _John_  was the one to drop me off?’ He’s already done talking, flipping you the bird in an unspoken message that clearly says _get out a my shop serket, youre done here._

Rolling your eyes, you stalk out holding the package. It’s big and awkward and you have to hoick it under one arm, making your denim jacket ride up. Whatever, you have twice the style of everyone else in this stupid fucking village anyway. Or at least, that’s what you tell yourself as you walk uncomfortably through Upper Dolorose holding a giant box of God-knows-what under your arm. It’s probably something awful like gardening supplies. Or quilts. You can’t decide what the most fucking awful, quintessentially British thing it could be is, and you’re debating the relative benefits of tea-sets and croquet mallets when you reach the front gates of the manor.

Jesus, this place is huge.

Okay, you guess, might as well get it over with. You’d have to meet the inhabitants of the manor sometime: and how many times already had you heard Kanaya mentioned in passing? She’ll be as lame as the rest of the village, you can already tell. Some prissy noble blonde horse-riding lady with perfectly curled hair, who’ll look down on you and your skate shoes and your piercings, take the package and tell you ‘thank you: you may go.’

You don’t want to fucking be here, really you don’t. But you have to, right, so you stump over the driveway and ring the doorbell.

_Okay, Miss Kanaya, come and meet me._

 


	3. In which yuletide is definitely a thing and so is, er, a lot of feelings i think! phew.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Christmas Day… gets better as it goes along. This year, Vriska's present is probably to get the fuck over herself. 
> 
> LITERALLY JUST CHRISTMAS AND ANGST. i could delete this entire chapter safely from the fic, but whatever fuck it enjoy it anyway.

‘Dinner, Vriska!’ yells - it might be Jade - up the stairs. You’ve yet to be able to tell them apart. You groan and grumble your way back down the staircase, stomping like you haven’t done since you were a teenager. The teeny table in the centre of the kitchen is wooden and painted white, and you feel yourself contracting Type II diabetes at the sight of the four inhabitants of your new home clustered around it together, four dark heads looking up at you. Bless: they look like a family, all ready to say grace.

You push your bleached layers back self-consciously, and sit down at the head of the table. You’re kind of not hungry, and too late it occurs to you you should have avoided this whole interaction by saying you’d had dinner at work. (Does Eridan’s shop do food? You’re pretty certain they do. You could’ve bluffed it out.)

‘Right!’ says Jane, hopping up and dashing to the bench. It occurs to you they were waiting for you to start, and a funny  mix of embarrassment and exasperation flops over in your chest. ‘You’re lucky you arrived on Jane’s night to cook, Miss Vriska,’ says Jake, smiling at you. There’s a chorus of ‘mm’s and ‘haha, yeah’s from the rest of rhe room. Jade chimes in: ‘See, the rest of us just pretend to cook. Jane’s the real deal.’

Jake laughs. ‘Yeah, let’s just say Harley here relies heavily on the microwave.’ Jade pokes her tongue out at him. ‘You’re not any better, Mister Packet Stew and Wilderness Survival Packs!’ You smirk. Personally, you can boil spaghetti, and you can fry shit: you wouldn’t go much further than that, but at least you aren’t these two.

‘What about John?’ you ask despite yourself, curiosity rousing as Jane sets the table around the rest of you. ‘What’s his god-awful cooking vice?’

They burst out laughing one and all, and John looks sheepish. ‘I’m not even allowed in the kitchen, Vriska,’ he admits. ‘I… set a cake on fire once.’

‘And I was proud of that cake, too,’ Jane huffs. ‘That was a good Black Forest.’

‘It looked at me funny! I am telling you, Jane, that cake was evil!’

‘Well, I think John’s just still scared of Betty Crocker hiding under his bed at night!’

‘Haha, _shut up_ , Jade -’

‘Er, so anyhow now John does the laundry every week, to equalise for his utter lack of cooking prowess -’

‘Hey!’

‘Panties and all?’ you say. To his credit, John doesn’t blush. You waggle your eyebrows (you’re good at that: you and Meenah used to have eyebrow-offs that left Aranea helpless on the floor, captive to high-pitched giggles you’d tease her about ‘til all three of you were laughing just as stupidly).

‘Only time he’ll ever see a girl’s panties,’ grins Jade.

‘I will have you know, I dated Rose for like a year and a half!’ he says indignantly.

‘Oh yes, your best friend’s twin. John dear, I don’t think you’re proving any heterosexual prowess by dating a girl who was essentially a Dave wearing lipstick.’

You laugh at that, along with the other three - no, you won’t go that far. You laugh, and so do the other three, but you’re alongside, you’re the extra. All through dinner they squabble like siblings, and talk good-naturedly about everything from Jade’s new fruit trees to whether Tony Stark would beat Sherlock Holmes in a fair fight (‘Neither of those two ever fought fair in their lives,’ you point out. ‘Fair is for people who don’t care about winning!)’ - and you wonder, did you ever have a bond this easy with anyone? Did you ever have friends who were this close?

The inhabitants of Prospit are nice to you, they include you, they laugh (dutifully) at your jokes, but so much of what they talk about is dull to you, or impenetrable, or unrecognisable. So much of what you think about, you predict, would be dull to them, or weird, or ugly. Their conversation is full of in-jokes and easy knowledge of everyone else in the talk - they speak with a mix of mischief and humor and love, and they know before they make a joke that everybody else will laugh.

Well, except for you. _How come they’re being so rude_ , you think irrationally, an odd light feeling in the back of your throat.

The first time you got drunk, it wasn’t with Meenah, or Aranea, or anybody else you mildly trusted. No, Aradia took you out to a nondescript bar on a street you’ve long since forgotten the name of, and she might have been sitting next to you but you drank on your own. By the time Aranea found you, the bar’s hazy lights had started to blur, your tired intoxicated eyes bleeding white into yellow into navy night sky. She pulled you out by the arm, stumbling, faintly embarrassed, and yelled as Aranea barely did. You laughed at her, glowered, folded your arms (it took you a couple tries) and argued back because that was what you _did_. You knew with about eight per cent of your brain that you were wrong, and you should just go home with her, stop yelling, throw up, cut your losses, but you couldn’t stop arguing. Despite the small voice in the back of your head that quietly observed this was all going to be really embarrassing in the morning, you kept arguing and let the fight get ugly, not knowing why and not knowing how to stop.

That’s what Upper Dolorose feels like. You turn belligerent, rowdy and sulky at turns, without quite understanding why, resenting every friendly advance your housemates make because they talk less than Aranea, or make jokes Meenah never would. The weather gets colder, the sun sets earlier - you spend all your time in the room at the top of the house on Netflix or job-searching or mostly just fucking around watching YouTube videos. You don’t meet a single person except for Eridan, the other people at your work, and the four pseudosiblings you live with. You get very good at making your bed, at doing eyeliner in one swoop due to practice in front of your tiny ovoid mirror, and you rearrange your jewellery collection an average of twice a week. Marqui might be gone, but Vriska’s not making much of a presence either. A small voice in the back of your head calmly notes _you’re being stupid, you can’t hide forever_ , but you can’t stop. Maybe you just won’t stop. Maybe the division between can’t and won’t is dissolving the longer you spend ignoring the world.

-

‘Merry fuckin’ Christmas,’ says Eridan one morning when you enter the shop, and you frown as you brush snow off your cerulean coat, but - of course it’s Christmas, you knew that, you were watching the days tick past on your laptop just recently. You suppose this is meant to be the trigger you get sad on, remembering how different Christmas used to be when you had NY, and Meenah, and Aranea. Last Christmas you spent at Meenah’s mother’s house, and it was hella fucking awkward because her stepfather just had to invite Megido senior and damn the consequences. No, Christmas wasn’t that big a deal. You decide not to be sad - not that you’re usually sad. Sad’s not a very Gant word.

This resolution gets you all the way to three minutes before the end of your shift, when you start remembering the time Meenah got her braids tangled in a pair of clip-on reindeer antlers, and the candles Aranea lit all over the fucking place til you were yelling _Jesus I don’t care how many holidays are happening right now, if you burn down our apartment I’ll strangle you with gift ribbon_. You barge out the doorway two minutes early, trying not to think too hard about how incongruously festive the casually cruel and uppity Condesce looked in a Santa hat, or the year you broke into your favourite mall with Meenah and rigged the neon lights to read HERRING FISHMAS one night and SEASON’S GREETINGS, SUCKAS!!!!!!!! the next. By the time you get to the end of the street, you’re rubbing your eyes with the back of your hand,  damn the makeup you put on this morning.

You stop for a second, and stare at the world, freshly painted sparkling white. The ‘main street’ of Upper Dolorose is barely wide enough for two cars to pass. You’ve stopped about halfway along, and from where you stand you frame a tableau made of snow and unhappy Vriska. The street extends on either side of you, wet dark slate on the just-cleared road, and pure white snow that nobody’s bothered to remove sits on the footpath and the roofs of the shops and houses. Looking down you see snow appear on the path in front of you, where the overhang of the shop you’re against stops protecting the street. It’s trodden down with footprints, but you feel alone on the street. People are walking past right now, exuding quiet happy chatter, two at a time, but the street’s not busy. If it was busy, you’d fit right in, wouldn’t you?

Your world, for a second, is nothing but dark grey and bright white and sharp lines of snowed road. You feel like the only colour in the world. You sink back against the shop window behind you, suddenly overwhelmed, and sink to the ground. You’re getting your ass wet. You don’t care: it fits with the misery you’re wallowing in.

What are you doing here? Seriously, what the _fuck_ are you doing? You don’t know who you are or where you’re going, not really, you’re just coasting through months in a town you don’t like. You’re working the kind of minimum-wage job that high-schoolers disdain, and spending your days killing time because there’s nothing you really fucking _enjoy_ any more. You have no friends, your boss hates you, and what’s worse you have nothing fucking better to do. Like Pyrope said, you’ve got literally nowhere.

You feel a sudden surge of hate towards Pyrope. ‘It’s not fair,’ you mutter to yourself, surprised at how big the lump in your throat’s suddenly gotten and how hard it is to speak. How fucking dare she expect you to leave everything you’ve ever known and loved, travel to a different country, start from nothing! You’d worked out who you were, god fucking damn it, you made a damn good Thief and Scratch loved you for it, you had a home with your sister and your girlfriend, her _best_ friend, and now you’ve got, what? Four people who pretend to like you? No hobbies to speak of, no home ‘cept the one the fucking police sent you to, nothing to make you you. Vriska Serket’s a fucking nonentity. What the fuck are you even supposed to do here?

Your back’s shaking a little. You’re thankful to discover you can sob silently. You flip up your hood, tendrils of blonde-blue hair and little bits of fur tickling the sides of your face, and clamber up off the ground again.

Then, you run.

Due to never going the fuck outside (because there was nothing to do and no reason to and god this town is boring and fuck you hate your life), you haven’t explored much of Upper Dolorose except the three streets it takes you to walk between Prospit Lodging House and Ampora’s General Store. Oh, and the one time you had to walk to the manor, after your first ever shift, but that doesn’t fucking count, you can see the manor from anywhere in the village. Running blindly just to run, therefore, especially in heavy snow when everything looks the same, may not have been your best decision.

You come to a stop about ten minutes later, panting and also sobbing a little bit, feeling sticky tear-tracks draw icy lines across your face. You’re surrounded by nondescript houses bleached white by Christmas. _Fuck Christmas_ , you think bitterly. Your nose is running and you wipe it with the back of your hand, glad nobody’s around to see -

‘Vriska?’

Well. It fucking figures.

‘Are you okay?’

You spin around, ready to grudgingly reply I’m fine as sullenly as you can manage, but instead of anybody you were expecting to see, it’s Kanaya, wrapped up in a sleek black coat and matching jade-coloured scarf and boots, carrying a huge hamper under one arm. ‘Wh - uh, hi, yeah, I’m okay, I’m fine, just walking,’ you say, and turn around again, intending to stomp off as fast as you can. Your fit of histrionics is rapidly fading, and you feel dumb hoping she didn’t notice the tear-tracks you can feel on your cheeks. You can find your way home from here, right? You do have a smartphone. Teeny as Upper Dolorose is, it’s gotta be on Google Maps. You just gotta find a street sign... ( _Bye, Kanaya. Nice seeing you._ )

‘Wait!’ she calls. You aren’t sure whether to feel guilty or trapped or… pleased? You turn around anyway, though, and she smiles at you, a small smile you can’t parse but you still think is adorable. ‘Listen, I am nearly finished distributing Christmas food packages,’ she says. ‘Would you care to walk home with me?’

You shove your hands in your pockets and contemplate her, all smug and snug, wrapped up, hair perfectly in place and clothes immaculate. You feel like a teenager next to her; you’re all messy layers of hair and even though it’s December, you’re still wearing jeans under your jacket. ‘Yeah. Sure,’ you say, shrugging it off. She’ll be a quicker route home than your phone would’ve given you.

Kanaya does that same small smile again. ‘Oh, good,’ she says.

You discover, trailing behind her, kicking at the snow that seems to be fucking everywhere, that you two walk at the same speed. Her legs are shorter, but you’re lazy and you barely move your legs. You could say conserving your power or you could say can’t really be bothered to change now.

‘So, Vriska, how are you finding Prospit?’ she asks suddenly, after a street’s worth of silent pacing. You jump, then flip your hair (then regret it: the air on your bare neck is _cold_ ). ‘It’s okay, I guess,’ you concede graciously. ‘Those four aren’t actually related, are they? Or do they just act like siblings ALL THE TIME?’

‘I don’t know, actually,’ says Kanaya amicably. ‘Perhaps they’re all clones of each other originally, just pushed into separate homes as babies.’

You snicker. ‘Bet they all took to each other the minute they met.’

‘“Hello John, I’m Jade and we will now proceed to be best friends. I hope you’re okay with that!”’

‘“Hello Jane. Apart from the cake-burning thing, I’m essentially you but with a dick -”’ you regret it as soon as it comes out. It’s crude. Britons aren’t crude. You’re pretty sure Kanaya’s aristocracy, too, or at least old blood, and the nobility definitely aren’t crude. Kanaya’s not fazed though, just laughs a little and asks, ‘Cake-burning thing?’

You cackle a little bit, and plunge into the story of John Egbert and the Unfortunate Black Forest Gateau. Kanaya listens, and laughs in all the right places. ‘You’re a good storyteller, Vriska.’

‘Eh, Not really my thing,’ you demur. ‘My sister, she - uh.’ You derail halfway through the sentence, realising exactly how uncomfortable a subject it is. ‘She used to tell stories, proper ones.’

Kanaya looks inquisitive, and you know there should be more to that story. She knows it too, but she senses your hesitation, notices there’s a reason you stopped in the middle. Like a good gentlewoman, she doesn’t push it. You hunch into your hood, mad at yourself for having a murky past you get depressed over. ‘Look, we don’t talk any more, okay?’ you snap at her. ‘She used to tell stories like nobody’s business, except we always said she needed an editor, because she never knew when to shut the fuck _up_. But she’d make up stories for everything that moved, explain everything that didn’t even when nobody wanted to hear it. Aranea, she liked stories, liked telling them, hell, I only tell them to make other people miserable…’

‘Anyway.’ You stare resolutely at the street.

Kanaya puts a hand, fairy-light, on your arm. ‘You tell them to make people laugh, Vriska,’ she says quietly. ‘I don’t think that’s so bad.’

The two of you don’t say much for the next few blocks. After all, you effectively just killed the holiday mood with a sledgehammer.

-

‘Here’s Prospit,’ she says, after a bit. You smile at her, half a smile, a fraction of a smile. ‘Thanks for the company, Maryam.’

‘You’re very welcome, Vriska,’ she says. She smiles at you, properly, but there’s a hint of the unreadable to her smile, like there was when she first found you lost on the other side of the village. ‘Thanks for walking me home,’ she says. ‘I’m afraid I may have been a little... turned around when you found me.’

You look at her steadily. She looks back, the mystery in her smile resolving into amusement. ‘How long have you been living here, Vriska? You must have a colossal amount of bad luck to get lost in a town as small as this one after months of habitation.’

‘Ah, not so bad luck,’ you say, grinning at her properly. Just for a second. ‘I mean, you were there.’ She starts to say _why thank you_ , but you’re already heading up the stairs. ‘Merry Christmas, Kanaya.’

‘Merry Christmas, Vriska,’ you hear from behind you as you slam the door.

-

‘Tell me you guys have roasted something good,’ you call by way of announcing your entry. You pull off your jacket and reach carefully around the Christmas tree to hang it up.

‘Hello, Vriska!’ calls Jane from the kitchen. ‘Yes, we have, and you’re helping set table! You’ve escaped cooking duties this far, but no further! That’s your first gift from me: family-style chores, and they will build character, be sure of that!’

‘We have a turkey, Vriska! We all chipped in,’ says John, getting up from the couch and pausing _Nightmare Before Christmas_ to follow you to the kitchen, where he’s blasted with yells of ‘OUT!’ by Jane and Jake. Hands up in surrender, he retreats, and you laugh at him from your privileged position inside the kitchen door.

‘Whatever, man, I’ll just stay out here and watch this totally sweet Christmassy movie without all of you guys, then - oh, holy shit, guess who just landed in Christmas village? And you guys are missing it! _What’s this - what’s this - there’s colour everywhere -_ ’

‘John, we’re not missing anything if you narrate the whooooooole thing really loudly while we’re trying to make you dinner!’ you yell. He grins at you for a fraction of a second longer than he should, and you worry: that’s the way Meenah used to look at you, back before either of you would admit to anything so blasé as liking the other. The moment passes, though. John ignores you and keeps singing. His voice isn’t bad, though it’s a bit crackly, and you’d consider joining in if that kind of thing wasn’t totally beneath you. ‘ _There’s lightning in the air_ ,’ he carols, and  ‘ _WHITE THINGS_!’ Jake yells from behind you. ‘Honestly, man, call yourself a movie connoisseur. I call you a big fat liar, ha!’

Grinning, you duck under Jake’s arm and grab a bunch of plates out of the cupboard above Jane’s head. This isn’t so bad, you think, and remembering the tears that covered your face half an hour ago has you scrubbing at your cheeks as casually as possible. You guess you were over-reacting, not that you’d admit that out loud. You can fix the things that are wrong. Right? All you gotta do is find a job that’ll use your penchant for breaking shit and fucking with machinery for good - then you’d never have to talk to Eridan either. Although you’re pretty sure you’d miss teasing him. And as for friends…

‘Vriska!’ says Jade, coming in from the garden, her cheeks flushed from snow. ‘Tell me you brought lemonade from work!’ Before you can respond, she’s hip-checking you to get to the fridge, nudging your shoulder in passing and giving you a friendly smile. ‘It’s okay, we have some left over,’ she says, then explains. ‘It’s a weird tradition my grandpa used to have, lemonade with Christmas dinner. You don’t have to have any, but I am going to!’ She resolutely plonks the entire bottle next to her spot on the table. You hurry to put a plate to follow it with.

‘Before we actually eat, though...’ Jake says dramatically, and you follow him to the main room. ‘Secret Santa!’ Jake triumphantly holds up a package with Jade’s name on it. ‘Harley, get in here!’

The other two trail out of the kitchen. ‘Wait. Fuck. We had a Secret Santa?’ you say. Jade claps both hands over her mouth. ‘ _John_. You were meant to tell her!’ You roll your eyes. John just scratches his head and laughs. ‘You got me! Sorry, Vriska.’

‘Well, she was meant to have you anyway, so it serves you right,’ Jade scolds. ‘Now you won’t get a present, fuckass!’ You jump hearing her swear, and she laughs. ‘Vriska, this one is for you.’ She holds out a big squashy package wrapped in lime green stripes. You take it dubiously.

Inside is an even bigger and squashier sweater, in pumpkin orange. ‘It made me think of you, because of the little room you live in,’ she explains. ‘And you always look so cold in all that denim!’

You laugh, looking at it. It’s just so big and so orange. But fuck, it’s Christmas. You pull it over your head, popping your neck out the top like a turtle. You are instantly dwarfed… but you are warmer. ‘Thanks, Jade,’ you say. You’re not used to saying the words. You would’ve used your mouth a different way (wink) to say thanks to Meenah. And Aranea did all the talking for you. But…

 _Thanks_. It works on your tongue.

‘Merry Christmas,’ you say, and hug her on instinct. She squeals before hugging you back.

That night, you watch the rest of  _Nightmare Before Christmas_ with all five of you squished onto and beside and in front of the sagging couch, and then you go on and watch _A Christmas Carol_ straight after. Because fuck it, it's Christmas, and you can act out of character if you want to. 

_Merry Christmas, Mr. Scrooge._

_Merry Christmas, Vriska._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> man that really needed editing but it's 1:30 am and i so can not be bothered. comment if there's any typos or anything, or if i, like, use the same word within two sentences of each other. merry christmas, jingle jingle motherfuckers, etcetera. happy chanukah as well, though it's over now. that only took me, lessee…  
> over a month.  
> under two.  
> that's not _that_ bad? right?


	4. in which plants and also snowballs are treated very irresponsibly! oh no, there should have been frogs as well 8)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vriska completes Important Bonding Activities and complains about John.

Apparently, now that you are being nice (well, nicer) to everyone, they've given themselves licence to be mean to you. This doesn't strike you as entirely logical: nevertheless, Jade steals your secret chocolates (how she even found your stash you don't know). You are forced to cook once a week (so do Jake and Jade, and Jane cooks three times by virtue of Actually Knowing What She's Doing. You can't call this one mean so much. But you will anyway, because you're Marquise Gant _oh no you're not_. Right.) Jake constantly nags you to watch awful movie after awful movie with him, and on the worst occasions, calls in John for backup and then you're outnumbered by nerds. It's terrifying.

John, though, John's worst fault isn't movies or a propensity to causing kitchen disasters, or even the fact that you suspect him of developing a crush on you. No, John Egbert has the audacity to fucking _prank_.

You discover this when he leaves spiders in your top drawer a week after Christmas. You reflect as you stare down at their little plastic bodies: if you'd been paying attention, you might have discovered this earlier, but you were busy being a mopey bitch. Too bad for John, you _like_ spiders. You shove them under his blankets, praying please don't find underwear, please don't find underwear, and you're rewarded by hearing his shocked yell all the way from downstairs when he finds them two hours later.

'Oi, Vriska,' he yells down the stairs, 'it is _on_!'

You crane your head to yell roughly in the direction of the stairwell, grinning all over your face. (You're partly grinning in satisfaction at the prank, and partly because John doesn't sound in the least romantic when he says it. You don't want to deal with that.) 'You know, I always thought New Year's resolutions were bullshit,' you call gleefully, 'but John, _I will win this_.'

-

These jobs suck. _All_ these jobs suck.

You're sitting cross-legged on your bed, laptop next to you [blasting Fun.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufO1G9x7Qxk) White afternoon sun makes a hard bright almost-square on the bed. Your knees are illuminated, as is your bedspread, and the village paper you stole from John's room (while you were greasing his doorhandle, on Jane's suggestion). It's called _The Furrow_ and it is a really shitty newspaper - some geeky teenager probably clicked-and-dragged it together in their bedroom. The Editor's Note uses waaaaaaaay too many commas for it to be somebody who actually completed a high school English course.

You squint and frown and bite a caramel neatly in half. The Jobs page sucks. Sorry, the eMPLOYMENT oFFERS page. (Does the hypothetical teenager think that looks cool and techy? It really just looks dumb and childish.) There is not a SINGLE JOB that you want to do, not shovelling shit for some farmer, not cataloguing the local church papers, definitely not waitressing. You hate waitressing with a frightening passion. You hate waitressing with the same fire that Meenah hates punctuation.

Anyway.

Looks like you're stuck with Eridan. You really shouldn't be surprised. What did you expect from a dump like this? This town is shitty and as soon as there's enough money in your fake bullshit made-to-order bank account, you're flying to London. Someplace big. Somewhere at least mildly cool, with actual fucking jobs. Maybe you can even start stealing again, although you guess you won't have the Family there. Stealing for yourself, now there's a thought...

and though it's a cool idea, being your own woman, it's not as exciting as you wish it was. The thieving wasn't the point. All the things you really want to do are in New York. Back there you got restless, sure, but restless for the same things you always did. Reckless for familiarity. You like knowing what you're doing. Fuck, you've been to _four places_ in all of Upper Dolorose. You've never even picked up the fish and chips on Fridays.

You are not a person who has ever been cursed with wanderlust. Pyrope just stuck you in a dead-end town because John was here - you didn't fucking _ask_ for scenic! You are an unwilling tourist with nowhere to go home to.

You're not even crying, but you rub at your eyes with the back of your hand anyway. You feel your fingers curl loosely. Then, quite suddenly, you crumple the newspaper shut and throw it, hard and fast, at the wall. It hits your mirror and slides ungracefully down the back of your dresser.

All you want is a _job_.

All you want is the impossible.

'VRISKAAA!' The front door bangs open. You bounce off the bed and then stop. Can't want them to think you're bored up here or some ridiculous shit, you tell yourself. You count slowly to eight and begin to leisurely stroll in the general direction of downstairs. 'I'm a busy woman!' you yell. 'Whaaaaaaaat?'

'Yeah, right you're a busy woman,' puffs Jade as she comes into view. 'I don't know what you do up there, Vriska, but this is important! I have to get these up to my room before they all just shrivel up and die!' Jade pulls her mittens off with her teeth, because she has a tray of plants in black pots, all assorted sizes, cradled in her arms. 'I swear,' she yells as she hurries up the stairs, 'Porrim doesn't know _anything_ about flowers, _oh, they'll be fine in the greenhouse no need to check blah blah blah..._ Plus I'm pretty sure their actual gardener is on drugs, like, all of the time, he didn't even _try_ to save them, what an _idiot_...'

Her voice stops being words and starts being burbling noise as she rushes up the stairs. You hear her door thunk and then she comes back down, still talking. '...and he just _left the greenhouse door open_ and now they're all dying!' Jade talks about plants being killed in the same tone you imagine she would talk about a brutal quadruple homicide: not so much outraged as deeply horrified.

'How absolutely shocking,' you say, deadpan. Jade rushes back past you, then grabs your hand and drags you out the door with her. 'It's fucking cold,' you note. 'Is this your whole job, saving dumbasses' plants in winter?'

'I'm a gardener, dummy! C'mon. There's more in the car, and it's _cold_ , get them in!'

'So you save dumbasses' plants all year round, big difference - wait, you have a car?'

Jade rolls her eyes dramatically enough to do Aranea proud. 'Of course there's a car! How did you think I ported an entire greenhouse here from the manor, by teleport? Do you _ever_ go outside? How did you think Jane got to Birmingham for uni?'

If you say _Jane goes to uni?_ in the same questioning tone, you're going to lose all your self-respect. So instead, you flick your hair and say, 'Yeah, yeah, okay. I knew that. I just... didn't put it together. Uh. What does Jane do exactly? I don't remember, it wasn't really important.'

Jade shoves another tray of plants at you. Something pink and red dangles in your face. You don't want this. Then you remember Jane said _Porrim_... isn't she Kanaya's sister? You hold back a sneeze and start stomping back up the stairs, cursing Kanaya for being pretty and nice enough to do favours for. Jade follows you, yet more plants braced against her waist.

'She's a culinary student. Duhhh! At the Birmingham Met. Jake goes there too, except he wants to be a PE teacher or something, not a chef. And they _drive_ to school, Vriska.'

'Wait. In, uh, Birmingham, there are real jobs and stuff? Like a proper city?' You open Jade's door with your wrist, balancing the tray on the other arm, and a wall of heat hits you in the face. Jesus. You kick some soft toys out of the way and dump the plants on the floor in the corner, next to the other tray.

'Well, yes! It is a proper city!' Jade is laughing at you, you think. Her slight buck-teeth are on full display as she laughs at you, and her cheeks are darker than usual with the cold. 'Huh,' you say.

'Here,' says Jade, and she shoves a small pot at you. 'I gave Porrim twelve of these two months ago. There are only five left alive, so she won't even know if I give you one. She doesn't deserve to keep it! Put it in the sun on your windowsill, water it at least twice a week. If you put a little mulch round the bottom of the pot, it might keep more of the moisture.'

'Huh,' you say again, turning the pot from side to side. It's a very small plant. It has three almond-shaped leaves and a stem the width of a pencil... and not a lot else. 'Thanks,' you add grudgingly. 'Although I don't know if I have the time to water this thing, I mean, it's not very important. And I have lots of important things to be doing!'

Jade is definitely laughing at you. You flush a little bit, but you're also smiling. You walk the little green stem carefully up to your room and put it on your window. You have no idea what it's going to grow into, and you only realise you could have asked as you hear the car pull out again. You are still staring at the little green thing on your window when Jake knocks carefully at your door and then drags you out into the street.

It is not often Vriska Serket goes outside. This is a significant event, you think self-importantly as you stuff large amounts of orange wool inside of your winter jacket. Jane informs you that _somewhere near Birmingham_ is not actually colder, on average, than New York, but it's colder than you expected it to be, so, same difference! And it's fucking snowing, again. The weather should have realised it had such an important person coming outside, and prepared accordingly. You know, if the weather was sentient. Or if there was something controlling the weather that was sentient.

'Is there a god in charge of weather?' you ask Jake. 'Maybe even, like, a minor spirit or something.' He stands next to you in the snow, just outside the door of Prospit, face turned up to the sky. Jake English appears absurdly happy about the cold weather and the fact that you, unfortunately, have to be outside in it. He probably thinks it's 'brisk'. 

'Do you know, I rather like that idea,' he says, staring at the flakes above him like they could teach him their pantheon with their shapes. 'A little spirit footling around rustling up squalls and tempests for a living.'

'Well, they could have been more fucking polite,' you say. Jake looks rather nonplussed, and you smile wickedly, turning your own face to the sky as well. The reason you're being dragged outside is simple, and mundane: you've run out of milk, and you have a discount at the grocery store due to your job of fucking with Eridan whoops you mean stacking things and selling milk. Jake is merely dragging you along because he has a boner for the outdoors visible from the other side of the world (this is a clever joke, because Jake is from New Zealand, and you are from the land of geniuses), and he thinks even a walk of four streets ought to have you jumping for joy. 

Yeah, whatever. You make small talk as the two of you walk in a leisurely way to the shop. Talking to Jake, especially about nothing in particular, is an odd experience: you almost feel like you're just talking to yourself, but with an automatic replying machine, like a computer which talks or something, to keep it interesting. It's not as if he isn't listening, he just accepts everything you say with something between hearty agreement and mild shock.

'My girlfriend used to go fishing on the weekends,' you say carelessly, just to see what his reaction will be. This is a risky one. However, you decide if he freaks out on you, you'll pretend that 'girlfriend' is still a word that people use interchangeably with 'best platonic buddy friend' in the twenty-first century (and then you will mark Jake English forever in your brain as a backwards fuckwit).

Luckily, you don't have to. Jake blinks, and then you see him decide carefully not to mention it. 'Oh... oh, really?' he asks politely. 'Was she any good?'

'Yeah, she was, actually,' you say, pleasantly surprised. Jake passed the test, not that you were setting it on purpose, but he passed it regardless without knowing it was there. 'Meenah didn't have patience for anything or anyone. Honestly, she was kind of a psychopath, and she got bored easily. No attention span... except when she was fishing, she'd sit still for hours and get mad at me for trying to distract her. She'd - shh, is that Kanaya?'

You hold out a hand to stop Jake from walking any closer, and stare openly at the woman walking down the street in front of the two of you. It looks like Kanaya. The hair's familiar. You're pretty sure you remember the scarf. Keeping a hand stretched in Jake's direction, you sink to the ground and scrabble around in the new snow with the other hand. It takes you a while to make a snowball, and it's rather slushy and unsatisfying, but when it hits Kanaya's back it makes exactly the right combination of squish and crunch.

Kanaya turns, slowly, and you mutter _oh shit_ to Jake, the both of you trying very hard not to giggle. Miss Kanaya has a temper, you've been reliably informed, and Eridan is convinced she knows judo despite no evidence to prove it. 'If she gets pissed, we run and Jane can get the milk herself, okay?' you mutter out of the corner of your mouth.

'Agreed,' hisses Jake good-naturedly, as Kanaya turns and starts heading towards you. It's just like when you were a kid, and your parents would get you in trouble, and you would know you _should_ feel bad but you couldn't keep the grin off your face. It wasn't even like you still thought what you did was funny, but that whatever it was you did had, for a moment, made everything funny: your parents' stern faces, the slightly smoking aftermath you'd created, Aranea disapprovingly staring, even the fact that you were in trouble at all was cosmically hilarious. Messing up makes the universe funny, and so you and Jake are snorting out of the corners of your mouth as you hear Kanaya call, 'You really shouldn't be doing things like that, Vriska. This is a public street -'

You collapse in laughter, leaning on Jake for support. She sounds so like your mother. For a second, she looks like she's going to keep trying to argue, but then she laughs, too. The laugh surprises you, because although Kanaya's had a good deal of fun at your expense, she usually smirks and gently smiles and sarcastically poker-faces her way through it. Something about the laugh catches your attention, about the little flick down her eyes do when she chuckles, as if she feels self-conscious for laughing. You think you hear her mutter, 'What the hell,' but you're still thinking about the first time in three or four months you've heard Kanaya laugh, your own fit of giggles trailing off, and so the snowball catches you unawares.

Now they're both laughing at you, Jake and Kanaya together. There is only one option: counterattack and defend your honour!

You hide behind a shop window and pelt them both until delicate drips have splatted everybody's clothes. Jake and Kanaya double-team you, Jake shouting 'Down with the Yankees!'. You sneak up behind Kanaya and smash a fistful of snow into her spiky hair. People passing you stare at the three full-grown idiots scrambling like little kids in the street (and then the two of you after Jake remembers the milk and runs off with a curse).

But here is the thing. When Kanaya looks up at you and smiles unabashedly, both of your eyes gleaming from snow on your faces and the feeling of being _alive_ that cold brings with it; when you hear her perfectly enunciated vowels turn into excited squeals; even when her face comes close to yours and your stomach gives a small and definite jolt - even after you've said hurriedly that you have to go and strolled deliberately away down the street... well, you can't shake the smile from your face, and you refuse to shake the snow from your shoulders or your hair. Turns out, without even realising it, you will brave being _noticed_ when Kanaya's around.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There has been a significant lack of Kanaya so far in this story. I'm sorry, we just had background to get to, and the more I write the more it occurs to me that this is more a story about Vriska than a story about Vriska/Kanaya. Comment if you think the lack of Kanaya is severe enough to change the pairing to Gen, bc at the moment it kind of is. I swear, more Kanaya happens. Specially in chapters 4 and 7, but in other places too!  
> The song Vriska is playing is called _Take Your Time Coming Home_ and it's from my favourite album of all time. It also happens to suit this fic very well. Go listen to it.


End file.
